Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH ·
against revelation, tho' they don't understand him. So that few of our
real or would be infidels are able to support even a show of argument.
They appear most formidable in the way of ridicule as best suited to their
capacities and most taking with the vulgar, in which they receive their
main strength from the Independent Whig, a book every where to be
met with. But this with Lord Shaftebury's politer way of banter unassisted
by the irregularities of the clergy would be of little force. Here indeed
they seem to triumph, and the misbehavior of some weak and (I wish
I could not say ) scandalous brethren lies open to the eyes and understanding
of the meanest and most illiterate [and] furnishes the evil
minded among them with a plausible objection to the truth of Christianity
drawn from the open practice of its professed defenders, makes
others careless about the knowledge and means of religion . ... and leaves
some simple and well meaning people a prey to the emissaries of the
church of Rome or to the enthusiasm of new-light or other itinerant
preachers. 15 2
Henry Callister, tobacco factor and musician of the Eastern Shore also
mentioned in preceding chapters, left perhaps the most valuable of all
colonial Maryland manuscripts as social history. From 1741 to 1746 this
sensitive and moody man kept friends and relatives in England and America
informed on a variety of topics, from music to natural history to local
trade to his miscellaneous reading. Unlike those of his good friend Bacon,
his religious beliefs were extremely liberal, at least for his time, though not
really atheistic. He seems to have shared with Sir John Randolph a sort
of Christian deism.
Callister lived for many years at Oxford, a prosperous port of call for
transatlantic merchantmen. The flood tide of the town's prosperity was
probably during his residence there. When Robert Morris, father of the
Signer and financier of the same name, was dying, his friend and employee
Callister read Plato to him. The Tobacco Law, the French and Indian War,
and provincial fauna and flora are among the subjects with which he was
concerned. A fair sample of his style is in a letter of May 4, 1746 :
Our Parliament [the General Assembly] had a sitting lately. They did no
business but to grant 100£ sterling to be given to the Indians to engage'em
on our side against the French, who 'tis said to have been tampering
with them. The meanness of the present bribe or subsidy whatever it
may be termed, is matter of ridicule to our neighboring colonies. The
Pennsylvanians say it is intended to furnish the Indians with Jewsharps;
and the Virginians call it a present of an Indian Tomhawk : but as the
Governor more seriously expresses it in his speech at the breaking up of
the Assemby, they have put the Province to 600£ expences to give 100£
to the Indians, and desires them to consider the absurdity of it at their
next meeting.153